The embattled Duke Energy has faced criticism before, and they’re under attack again. This time they’re facing down the wrathful tweets of former Duke University basketball player Jay Bilas.
On Monday night, in the midst of basketball primetime, Bilas posted the following picture of his living room on Twitter:
A photo of me watching games in my living room. Oops, our @DukeEnergy transformer blew YET AGAIN in great weather! pic.twitter.com/Clk5nZ0pBH
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) January 27, 2015
Duke Energy has had other problems in the past, namely with dumping coal ash — an estimated 50,000-82,000 tons of it — into the Dan River and potentially endangering major sources of water for many North Carolinians.
Duke Energy, not wanting to seem unresponsive to criticism, tried to explain to Bilas exactly what was causing the outages:
@JayBilas Sorry you missed last night's game! (This ‘Cuse fan would have liked to miss it.) A tree limb fell and broke an insulator.
— Duke Energy (@DukeEnergy) January 27, 2015
@JayBilas Looks like your past 3 outages were all tree limb related. Good news is: our crews are planning tree work in your area now.
— Duke Energy (@DukeEnergy) January 27, 2015
The former basketball player, current ESPN host, author and lawyer was not having any of their excuses, however:
@DukeEnergy Not so. That transformer blows often, for no such reason. Funny how it's the only one in our area with so many "limb issues."
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) January 27, 2015
@DukeEnergy Years of tree problems on that one transformer?! Please. When in a hole, stop digging. Excuses, and lame ones.
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) January 27, 2015
Duke Energy is currently under the scrutiny of the state of North Carolina and a law that orders the company to look for ways to clean up its February 2014 coal ash spill, and establishes a commission that will help implement the solutions.
Another Twitter user had some simple insight for Bilas.
@JayBilas @DukeEnergy Anything with Duke in it is bound to be lousy.
— Gregory Bush (@GregoryAlanBush) January 27, 2015
Perhaps with Jay Bilas calling the company out, Duke Energy will be forced to get its act together.
state@dailytarheel.com
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